July 10, 1989: THE MAKING OF DOWNING CORP. Battle over Black Point puts Downing in spotlight

IRA CHINOY and PETER PHIPPS

Thursday

Oct 24, 2013 at 8:32 AM

Part Two of a Two Part Series: One day in June last year, protesters sneaked onto the State House dome and draped a 15-foot banner over the white Georgian marble. "GOV. BACARRI?" it asked, in large red letters, misspelling the wealthy developer's nam

One day in June last year, protesters sneaked onto the State House dome and draped a 15-foot banner over the white Georgian marble.

"GOV. BACARRI?" it asked, in large red letters, misspelling the wealthy developer's name.

"Who really runs this state?" asked an anonymous caller to the Journal-Bulletin, taking credit for the banner. Is it Governor DiPrete, she said, "or Richard Baccari and the Downing Corporation?"

Thirty miles to the south in Narragansett, Downing and Baccari - the development firm's chief executive and co-owner - were locked in a battle with local residents, environmentalists, social activists and the state's attorney general.

The issue was - and still is - Black Point, a rocky ribbon of coastline where Narragansett Bay meets Rhode Island Sound. Baccari called it a "diamond in the rough." He hoped to "make it sparkle" with luxury condominiums.

His opponents called it a natural treasure and fought to block or at least restrict its development.

The skirmishes quickly escalated into a struggle over private property rights and the public interest, and focused unwelcomed attention on Baccari and the Downing Corporation and their relationship with Governor DiPrete.

"Prior to this job," Baccari maintains, "we were a very private company.

"The whole issue," he says of Black Point, "has been blown out of proportion so that we're made to look like the bad guys."

In and out of controversy

A number of Baccari's development plans over the years have generated controversy and criticism in cities and towns across the state:

* In South Kingstown last year, at a hearing on Downing's proposal for nearly 100 units at Indian Lake, a neighborhood spokeswoman asked town officials to "make headlines" and show other communities that "South Kingstown had the character and backbone to stand up to the Downing Corporation."

* In North Providence, a neighbor of the Louisquisset complex wrote a letter to the editor last summer, giving his opinion that Baccari's firm was "arrogant, greedy, untrustworthy." His beef and that of some neighbors: Downing was building in a buffer zone between the development and the neighborhood.

Several North Providence Town Councilmen were angered as well. One, John Celona, speaking at a Zoning Board meeting, likened it to "blackmail" when Downing said it would forgo as many as 219 more units if the town would consent to one disputed 10-unit building.

* In Warwick, home owners along Cowesett Road worried about the traffic that a proposed Downing shopping center would bring to their winding, hilly, residential street. One blasted Downing for using what he called a "scare tactic" - the suggestion that an industrial park could be built at the site with no need for a zoning change. Some opponents came to City Council meetings waving placards.

When the Council approved the shopping center in 1984, 16 neighbors filed suit. That case went all the way to the state Supreme Court, where Downing - represented by the law office of then-Senate Majority Leader John C. Revens Jr. of Warwick - won and then built the center.

* In Narragansett, when Leonard Matarese was hired as town manager of the beach resort community in 1986, he says "developers were running circles around the town, Baccari in particular." In early 1987, the Town Council enacted a building moratorium until the town's zoning ordinance could be revised. Baccari sued the town, seeking $5 million. That drew fire from Save the Bay: The environmental group's spokesman called it "a case of the common good versus outright greed."

Into a broader arena

The dispute over Black Point went beyond local borders into the arena of statewide politics.

Baccari and several investors - including then-Senator Revens and Bruce M. Selya, a federal judge - had paid $2.4 million for the site in 1984. The fight over Downing's development plan opened before town boards, where the firm won a zoning change, and continued in the courts.

Downing's opponents carried their battle to the state Coastal Resources Management Council, seeking continued public access to a shoreline path they said had been used by generations of Rhode Islanders. One group also urged the state to take the land for use as a public park.

Baccari offered to compromise, but his vocal adversaries, led by Save the Bay, took a hard line. Baccari responded by trying to cripple the state's most influential environmental group.

In letters to Save the Bay's largest sponsors, Baccari wrote that this "obstructionist organization" had abused the public trust and gained support by misrepresenting the public-access issue. He asked them to reconsider their continued financial support of the environmental organization.

In this instance, Baccari's hard-edged methods appear to have backfired.

"It turned out to be a fund-raising bonanza for us," says Save the Bay executive director Trudy Coxe. In the wake of Baccari's attack, Coxe says, the organization received a flurry of supporting calls and letters and an extra $5,000 to $7,000 in contributions.

Now, five years after Baccari and his investors bought the property, the construction of those waterfront condominiums is unlikely. Following up on a promise DiPrete made last September, the governor said in May that he had set aside $6.4 million to buy Black Point and turn it into a public park. Last Friday, DiPrete filed papers taking possession of the property.

A Downing official has called the state's $6.4 million valuation "absurd" and vowed to seek a higher price in court.

Sundlun cries foul

DiPrete's Democratic opponent, Bruce Sundlun, claimed during last year's campaign that DiPrete's move to acquire Black Point was really the "bail out" of a major contributor, that Downing's plans for the site were on the verge of collapse.

Indeed, there appeared to be strong ties between Baccari and DiPrete.

Baccari, who began supporting DiPrete while he was mayor of Cranston, had given more than $45,000 toward DiPrete's three campaigns for governor. Politicians in both parties have received more than $100,000 over the years from Baccari and 15 of his companies and partnerships; DiPrete is, by far, the greatest single recipient.

Members of the governor's inner circle of political advisers have also had close links to the developer. The governor says he was introduced to Baccari in l984 by H. James Field Jr., who was then DiPrete's campaign chairman and one of Baccari's partners in the Garden City Shopping Center. DiPrete's cousin, lawyer James DiPrete Jr., has represented Downing in dealings with the state Department of Transportation and also solicited donations for DiPrete from Downing.

And Baccari has supported DiPrete with his newspaper, The Echo, which serves Rhode Island's Italian-American community. The paper endorsed DiPrete for governor in 1984 and again in 1986, saying "He may be the best Rhode Island has ever seen."

A frustrating decision

Though Baccari says he was frustrated by DiPrete's decision on Black Point, that did not stop him from endorsing the governor again last fall.

"Hey listen. I'm not a politician. He is," says Baccari. "He decided he had to cave in. I can't control him. I don't agree with that, but do I think he's good for Rhode Island? Yes I do."

That's also the reason Baccari says he has supported the governor financially. "I think he understands the real estate business," says Baccari, "and he's good for the building industry in general."

As a contributor, he says, "maybe you can get an appointment. I don't think you can get any other benefit. We've kicked --- with Bob Bendick on so many different projects; we've gotten no preferential treatment. You can ask him about that."

Bendick is DiPrete's director of the Department of Environmental Management. If Baccari wants to build on property that might include wetlands - which he has - or if he wants to install septic systems anywhere in the state, then DEM approval is essential.

As Baccari sees it, that process is too slow and, he says, he has complained about it to the DEM, the governor's staff and countless others.

Bendick, meanwhile, says he has found Downing to be "very, very aggressive . . . more aggressive than most other developers." But Bendick says: "I think the key thing . . . is that we did not bend to that, to . . . pressure by Downing."

In a fight between Downing and Narragansett over a project called Salt Pond Seaport Village, town officials say actions taken by Bendick and his department did undercut their position. Bendick counters that he was trying to do the best thing, within the law, for the environment.

Downing's plan was to build a subdivision on land bordering the top of Point Judith Pond, which he bought in late 1985.

In the summer of 1987, several obstacles remained. One was Narragansett's building moratorium, a ban Downing was challenging in court.

The second obstacle concerned sewage disposal.

A town official warned DEM of some marginal soil conditions, and a DEM consultant wrote that it was very important that the Salt Pond project have sewers instead of septic systems.

But the town refused to allow sewers under a policy that restricted tie-ins from new developments. In addition, the area was not in the town's long-term plan for new sewers.

When Downing asked DEM to okay septic systems, Bendick called Clarkson Collins, then the town's environmental coordinator, to a meeting at his office July 14, 1987. Collins's boss, Stephen R. Sasala II, then the town's director of community development, went along.

Both Narragansett officials were taken aback to find Baccari there, along with a Downing lawyer and engineer, especially since Downing had the suit pending against the town.

"I got the sense that Bendick was . . . our adversary," says Sasala. "It seemed he was trying to put us on the spot about our objections."

At a later meeting, Sasala recalled, Bendick told him he was "under a lot of pressure from the governor's office" relative to the Downing project.

Denials

DiPrete and Bendick deny that. They say Downing complained to the governor's office about how long DEM had taken to study its request for septic systems, and that one of the governor's aides called Bendick.

He says he called that July 14 meeting in hopes of resolving the dispute without litigation. Instead, Bendick himself was dragged into the legal fight between Downing and Narragansett. Downing tried to depose Bendick, a move the DEM director called "outrageous."

The town settled, allowing Downing to proceed with scaled-down plans for development. The town also agreed to let Downing tie into the sewer system in return for $292,300 to cover repairs.

Collins, the Narragansett official, says the town felt compelled to allow a sewer tie-in because the DEM approved more septic systems than town officials believed the site could handle.

"Our position," says Collins, "was undercut by the fact that the DEM approved them . . . . So we were put in the position of trying to mitigate the damage."

Under state law, Bendick says, the DEM had little choice but to approve septic-system permits for the project.

Though Bendick says he and Collins "probably agree with each other on most things, here's a case where we're at loggerheads. How did this happen?

"It happens because these guys are very persistent," says Bendick. "They get their lawyers and they hammer on everybody."

"I think that what some of the meaning of this thing is the, sort of, ability of that corporation to play people off against each other and to find the cracks in the system to allow them to do the kind of things they want to do. They've had a lot of success at that," Bendick says.

In his experience, Bendick says, Downing sues or threatens to sue and as a result they get "everybody all rattled." DEM employees, Bendick says, are also aware that one of the law firms used by Downing has sued DEM employees personally on behalf of other clients. That prospect, he says, "scares the hell out of them."

There are other examples.

Four years ago when a group of Warwick residents sued city officials and the Downing Corp. to overturn rezoning for a shopping center, Downing countersued. The company petitioned for $1 million in damages and asked the court to hold the residents personally responsible.

That action caught some of the neighbors by surprise. It shouldn't have, Baccari says. When it gets down to cases, Baccari says, he has to act to protect his interests and he can't afford to worry what people will think of him.

"If I don't fight, people won't think I'm a bad guy, but I won't have anything. So what can I say to you?" Baccari asked.

"You'll have to think I'm a bad guy, but I know what I am and that's most important to me. And the people I deal with know who I am. So I'm a bad guy. What can I tell ya? Results are what count. Forget everything else. Only results count."

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